the rest was stark naked. The ladies wore lovely blouses, magnificent hats, parasols . . . and that was all! . . . And there was nothing in it, Addie, really there was nothing in it; it was all quite natural, quite proper, quite fashionable; and they walked about like that and sat on chairs and listened to the music! . . . And the fishermen . . . the fishermen, Addie, went about like that too! . . . And the musicians . . . in the bandstand . . . were half-naked too; and . . . the tails . . . of their dress-coats . . . hung down . . . well . . . like that!"
Van der Welcke, as he told his dream in broken sentences, lay shaking with laughter; his whole bed shook, the sheets rose and fell; he was red in the face, as if on the verge of choking; he wept as though consumed with grief; he gasped for breath, threw the bed-clothes off:
"Just imagine it . . . just imagine it . . . you never . . . you never saw such a stretch of sands as that!"
Addie had begun by listening with his usual serious face; but, when he saw his father crying and gasping for breath, rolling about in the bed, and when the vision of those sands became clearer to his imagination, he also was seized with irresistible laughter. But he had one peculiarity, that he could not laugh outright, but, shaken with internal merriment, would laugh in his stomach without uttering a sound; and he now sat on the edge of his
